Articles Posted inCialis

The Viagra litigation is ramping up. Last April the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) created a multidistrict litigation site in the Northern District of California for lawsuits alleging injury against Pfizer from the use of Viagra. Since then, the Viagra lawsuits have piled up in California federal court.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Viagra (sildenafil citrate) for sale in 1998. It set out to fix an intimate and unhappy problem: erectile dysfunction. One study indicated that thirty million men may suffer from erectile dysfunction. And it worked (I’ve heard). Millions of men standing on the sidelines were back in the game.

The reason I know it worked is because Viagra’s manufacturer, Pfizer, Inc., sold $1.8 billion dollars worth of the drug in 2013. Pfizer has self-reported that it has prescribed Viagra to 35 million men. All over the country and all over the world, those 30th wedding anniversary weekends were suddenly a lot more fun. And that’s a wonderful thing.

In April 2016 the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation created a multi-district litigation (MDL) court for lawsuits against Pfizer, the maker of Viagra. That MDL is No. 2691. Plaintiffs in those cases allege that taking Viagra increased the risk of developing melanoma, a potentially deadly skin cancer. MDLs are created when many lawsuits are filed alleging very similar facts against the same defendants for similar injuries. One consolidated court permits a more efficient pre-trial process, where discovery can be organized, consolidated, and “shared” among all parties. Now men who allege they developed melanoma from taking Cialis have asked to join the Viagra MDL.

The Motion

On September 28, 2016, several plaintiffs who have filed suit against Eli Lilly and Co., the maker of Cialis (another erectile dysfunction drug), asked the judge presiding over the Viagra MDL to permit all plaintiffs suing Eli Lilly to transfer their cases to MDL 2691. The plaintiffs alleging injury from Cialis argue that the science behind the Cialis cases is essentially the same as the science behind the cases involving Viagra. According to the motion, the Cialis Plaintiffs allege that their injuries “were caused by Cialis through the exact same mechanism of action.”

As if erectile dysfunction were not harrowing enough. In March 2016 a published study concluded that the use of the drug sildenafil (Viagra), vardenafil (Levitra), and tadalafil (Cialis) “could promote melanoma in humans.”

As you probably know, melanoma is the most aggressive and most dangerous form of skin cancer. Melanoma develops when damage to skin cells (usually caused by ultraviolet radiation from sunshine or tanning beds) triggers mutations that lead the skin cells to multiply rapidly and form malignant tumors. Most people think of melanoma as dark, asymmetrical moles, and in fact melanoma can develop from existing moles, but melanoma can also form directly on the skin. Melanoma is often caused by intense, sustained exposure to ultraviolet light, the kind which causes suntans and sunburns. Melanoma has been estimated to cause over 10,000 deaths in the United States each year.